From SLH : "I have a few red/white labeled Happy 7 quart bottles in green glass to offer from the "Happy Seven Co. Wilkes Barre, PA"  Has "Deposit on this bottle at the store 5-cents" "Made from sugar, lithiated lemon, lime, citric acid, carbonated water" <<CLICK HERE>> to see the picture of one of the bottles. E-mail me if interested."

the Southern Maid - Vivian Leigh
Gone with the wind? See for yourself -- Click here.

Click here to meet Deacon Jones from Mt. Clemens, Michigan

Grimes Kola....from Walnut Ridge, Arkansas

Hoping to appeal to a new generation of fans through familiar brands, LGB has tied into Coca-Cola for its latest license-adorned electric train set. The toy train maker's 72428 Coca-Cola Freight Starter Set, 120 Volt, features a 2-4-0 steam locomotive with smoke, a full circle of track (1290-mm diameter), power pack and quick-connect cable.
 San Diego, CA

Pepsi Bottling Group, the largest bottler of Pepsi soft drinks in the world, has signed a letter of intent to buy Pepsi-Cola Buffalo Bottling Corp. Although financial terms of the deal were not made public, the deal is expected to be completed in the fist quarter. Buffalo Bottling is based in Buffalo NY and operates in the Erie, Niagara and Cattaraugus counties in New York. It has been owned and operated by the Pastor family since 1955, employing around 250 people.

The US State Department honored Coca-Cola for civic programs involving donations to Egyptian schools, promoting projects for the country's National Cancer Institute and sustainable development initiatives in Egypt. Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the department's annual Award for Corporate Excellence to executives from Coca-Cola, which employs over 7700 workers at its facilities in Egypt.

The chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola Bottling Company, Frank J. Harrison III, has sold 6000 shares of the company's common stock, according to a Form 4 released Monday by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Harrison sold the shares for $46.875 each.

The Coca-Cola Company announced an offer to consumers who purchase two specially marked 12-pack packages of cans of Coca-Cola products including Coca-Cola Classic, Diet Coke, Sprite and Nestea Cool from November 22 through December 31, 2002, a $25 certificate for roundtrip domestic coach airfare on Delta Airlines. The discount is good for travel between January 7 and June 15, 2003. Consumers must be members of the Delta SkyMiles frequent flyer program to participate.

New bottles or cans, or anything soda, in your area ?
Please send the info so all of us can know @ WhatsNew@thesodafizz.com

October 11-12 (Friday-Saturday) Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix Antique Bottle & Collectibles Club's Annual Show & Sale
(Fri 2pm-5pm, Sat 9am-4pm, early admission Fri 11am-2pm)
in the Superstition Ballroom of the Rendezvous Center
City of Mesa Community & Conference Center
the corner of Center & University, Mesa, Arizona
Info: Michael Miller, 9214 W. Gary Rd., Peoria, AZ 85345
Ph: 623-486-3123, E-mail: helgramike@msn.com

October 12 (Saturday) Burnsville, Minnesota
Nicollet Junior High School's 6th Annual Benefit Bottle, Advertising & Stoneware Show & Sale
(Sat 9:30am-3:30pm) at Nicollet Junior High School
400 E. 134th St., Burnsville, Minnesota
Info: Steve Ketcham, Nicollet Junior High School, 400 E. 134th St., Burnsville, MN 55337
Ph: 952-707-2653, E-mail: sketcham@burnsville.k12.mn.us

October 12 - 13 (Saturday - Sunday) Santa Rosa, California
Northwestern Bottle Collectors Association's 36th Annual Show & Sale
(Sun 9am-3pm, early admission Sat Noon-7pm) at the Finley Hall Building
Sonoma County Fairgrounds, Santa Rosa, California
Info: Bev Siri, Ph: 707-539-1169, E-mail: rtsiri@sonic.net

October 13 (Sunday) Bedford, Pennsylvania
Bedford County Antique Bottle Club's 25th Annual Show & Sale
(Sun. 9AM-3PM) at the Bedford County Fairgrounds 4H Building
Bedford, Pennsylvania
Info: Charles Hazlett, RR 3 Box 605, Hollidaysburg, PA 16648
Ph: 814-695-0128, E-mail: bedfordantqbottl@aol.com

October 13 (Sunday) Keene, New Hampshire
Yankee Bottle Club's 35th Annual Show & Sale
(Sun. 9 AM - 3 PM, early admission 8 AM) at Keene High School
Arch St., Keene, New Hampshire
Info: Creighton G. Hall, 383 Court St., Keene, NH 03431, Ph: 603-352-2959

The Sixth Annual Capital District Antique Bottles, Insulator & Table-Top Collectibles Show will be held Sunday, October 27th, from 9am to 2:30pm at the Historic Shaker Meeting House, 875 Watervliet Shaker Road, in Albany, New York. A copy of the show's brochure can be found <<HERE>>. Contact Bob Latham @ 518-463-1053, E-mail: blath@capital.net or Kevin Lawless @ 518-357-2333, E-mail: kflbostons@aol.com

The Vintage Chapter of the Coca-Cola Collectors Club is hosting its annual Soda Pop Show at the Comfort Inn in Memphis, Tennessee, November 1-2, 2002. Only vintage collectibles are bought, sold and traded at this show. For more information, please contact William Beck at 901-458-4510. For hotel reservation, please call Comfort Inn at 901-767-6300. Room rates are $59 + tax per night by mentioning the Vintage Chapter. The hotel is off of I-240 Poplar Avenue East.

Any new events  in your area? Mail so all of us can know, to: Events@thesodafizz.com

 by Blair Matthews

In the 1970's, while Coke and Pepsi were continuing to duke it out in the marketplace, another cola was silently plotting to give them a run for their money. And while "King-Cola" never conquered its two dominant cola competitors, it gained notoriety because its founder (83-years-old at the time) was Walter S. Mack, former president and C.E.O. of Pepsi Cola in the 1930s and '40s who has been credited for helping make Pepsi the No.2 cola drink in the world.

Mack's storied career in the beverage world, although now widely hailed as an all-American success story, started out rather nonchalantly. After serving in the navy during World War I, Mack entered business. He gradually rose from salesman to vice-president of Phoenix Securities Corp., a holding company for other businesses that he helped build. 

His vice-presidency at Phoenix Securities Corp. led to him being appointed to the executive board at Pepsi-Cola (a much longer story that we'll save for another time) which eventually led to him being appointed President of Pepsi-Cola.

One of Mack's first orders of business was in the area of the company's advertising. He fired the Metropolitan Agency and in the summer of 1939 heard presentations from several major advertising agencies. It was during this agency search that one of the most famous advertising jingles in history was created by Lord & Thomas (L&T), one of the agencies soliciting the account. 

The tune was sung to the tune of the old English ballad, "John Peel": "Pepsi Cola hits the spot,/Two full glasses, that's a lot./Twice as much for a nickel too./Pepsi Cola is the drink for you." By 1941, that little jingle had been broadcast 296,426 times over 469 radio stations.

If that advertising feat wasn't enough to gain a little notoriety, consider some of Mack's other Pepsi accomplishments:

He launched the world's largest skywriting campaign, and introduced many new forms of advertising and merchandising programs. Mack had the foresight to hire a well-respected advertising company, "Newell, Emmett & Co." out of New York City who in turn created the wildly popular Pepsi & Pete policemen characters (originally named Sarge and Large). Mack is also credited with the change in Pepsi bottles from plain paper labels to glass embossing.

After a long reign at Pepsi, in October 1950, with Pepsi sales slumping a reported $6 million from 1947 figures, Mack resigned as president. He stayed on with the company for seven more years as a beverage consultant, and left the company altogether in 1957. At the time, Mack was prohibited from starting a competing beverage company (according to the small print in a contract he had signed with Pepsi years earlier).

The idea of owning his own beverage company was in the back of his mind, but in the meantime, he went back to his roots of helping companies that were in financial trouble.

Twelve years later and with the beverage business still in his blood, Mack returned to selling and marketing sodaÖ he had a plan, but first, he wanted to test it out on a small scale. He bought the American rights to an Irish firm called Cantrell & Cochrane who had started out producing a tonic water that they exported to India. The company was small, having only one bottling plant located in Belfast, Ireland.

Mack's goal was to test out his theory of canning and warehouse delivery by making and marketing a C & C cola, but not in the traditional packaging. He was convinced the public was ready to buy soda in cans instead of the traditional glass bottle.

Others in the beverage industry scoffed at Mack's bold predictions with one Coca-Cola executive telling him, "You know, Walter," he said, "you're making a great mistake trying to put soft drinks in cans. It'll never go. We've tested it in the can. The public doesn't like it, and it'll never sell. We've decided that we'll never put Coca-Cola out except in a bottle, a glass bottle."

Within a year, Coca-Cola followed Mackís lead and slowly began the can revolution. Later, Mack sold C & C to John Ritchie and the employees at the New Jersey plant they had recently opened. That particular soda remained primarily in the New York area, and according to Mack, continued to do well for years. 

Another gap in Mack's ventures into the beverage industry dawned as he embarked on a political career that spanned nearly a decade.

At the age of 83, Walter Mack had no intention on retiring... from anything. Long before Mack was prepared to jump back into selling soda, he registered a name that had caught his fancy years earlier: "King-Cola". To him, King-Cola seemed to have just the right ring to it. Mack wanted Tommy Elmezzi, his chief chemist from his years at Pepsi, to work with him side-by-side to develop a new cola for the 80's. Finally in 1978, the duo came together and King-Cola was formed.

Mack was careful to put just the right people together ñ key people he had met over the years from Coca-Cola and Pepsi. He knew that in order to make a cola that could compete with the two giants, much work would need to be done.

In 1979, a newspaper article quoted Mack as saying, "King-Cola was designed to corner a minimum of 1 percent of the market by the end of the first year and 3 percent by the end of the second year. That might not seem like much, but remember that there are 3 billion cases of cola drinks sold yearly in this country," he said. 

To corner that 1 percent, Mack priced King-Cola at least 25 cents per six-pack less than its chief competitors (a strategy, he said, that was possible due to lower distribution costs). Mack was confident his cola could compete with the big two, "not only because we have a quality product ñ some say equally as good, I say better than Pepsi of Coca-Cola ñ but also because we can sell it more cheaply."

Initial sales of King-Cola were encouraging as it captured "about one-and-a-half percent" of the business in its first market invasion in to Southern California in May of 1979.

The following summer was a time of expansion for King-Cola as Mack introduced it to markets in Seattle, Portland, Washington, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Dallas.

One year after King-Colaís introduction, the plan seemed to be working. According to spokesmen for food chain 'Kroger' in Cincinnati, the product had been getting "a big push" on television, and sales of the cola were healthy. The 80ís dawned and it wasn't long before King-Cola inevitably began to feel to pressure of being squeezed out of the market. Mack knew that King-Cola would have its ups and downs, but was confident he had the right formula to beat the competition. It was not meant to be.

Mack's plans to drive a wedge into the market were never realized. He died on March 18, 1990 at the age of 98.

Little explanation is available as to what year King-Cola ceased production, although Stephen Rocco, founder of a completely different "King Cola" currently in operation offers this insight: ìI can tell you that we are not related in any way (to Walter Mackís King-Cola). I decided on the name back in 1993, but we didn't start producing it until 1996. There were two other 'KING-COLA' trademarked companies, back in the 70's and 80's, in Indiana, and New York, but they were both abandoned. Most likely beaten up by Coke, Pepsi, and their own lack of financing and distribution."

For Walter Mack, being in the soda business wasn't a job or a career ñ it was a way of life. He loved it dearly.

In a 1982 biography, he wrote: "I've been in a great many businesses in my life, and the soft drink business is still, to me, the most fascinating there is. There is just nothing like it anywhere... It's a sweetheart business. I am a guy for liking the masses. They're my people, I was brought up with them, I know them, I like them, and I appreciate their judgment. I always wanted to cater to the mass purchasing power of this country, and there isn't anything that does that like a soft drink." 

Blair Matthews is the Editor of Soda Pop Dreams. Visit SPD's website to learn more about the publication and any special offers from Blair.

If you have a soda-related subject that you would like to see here as an "FYI" article, or have information you yourself would like to contribute, don't be shy, send it to: FYI@thesodafizz.com

Until next week, Happy Collecting! CokeGirl